Fished the Tongariro yesterday with my mate from TALTAC Peter Grange. We were down lower river and each hooked a few and landed a few with Peter landing one OK fish on the wet line. In general though, pretty much everyone now realizes that the average size this year is probably just under 3 pounds which is around a pound smaller than last year and is something that DOC really needs to research as to why. It could be natural or unnatural but will be in some way related to the predominant food source – smelt. In saying that the size is down, good numbers are still around and realistically in any other part of the world the fish would still be counted as huge – for wild fish. Its just that we are so used to being spoilt by large numbers of 4 and 5 pound plus fish on the Tongariro that 3 pounders dissapoint us.

There is some speculation from people that it is because with the 45cm limit we have been selectively culling the best breeding stock and leaving the smaller ones to breed. Whilst I agree that this could have an impact in some fisheries, it is unlikely that this would be the main cause as the drop in size would be a gradual thing over many years and not a sudden drop of around a pound on nearly every fish like we have had this year. By the way – in case any people reading this are against the killing of trout – I don’t kill or allow clients to kill fish in some rivers – just Taupo and Rotorua tributaries which are proven sustainable fisheries. I always feel that in wild fish environments trout will reach a balance in size more dependant on available food sources than on competition for that food source from other trout – though obviously an over abundance of trout in certain conditions could harm that food source. I don’t feel in most un-stocked rivers that over abundance of trout is a problem as floods and other predators keep numbers down.